Senate Bill 2-2017

2017 State Senate Bill 2 “Building Homes and Jobs Act

The California Legislature passed and the Governor signed Senate Bill 2, Chapter 2.5 of the Statues of 2017, effective January 1, 2018 that recordable documents may be charged a fee to support the Building Homes and Jobs Act.

The bill imposes a State mandate on County Recorders to charge an additional $75 tax at the time of recording every real estate instrument, paper, or notice required or permitted by law to be recorded, except those expressly exempted from payment of recording fees, per each transaction per parcel of real property, not to exceed $225.

Documents believed to be exempt from paying the $75 Building Homes and Jobs Act tax must have an exemption on the face of the document when submitted for recording. The following exemptions apply:

“Exempt from fee per GC 27388.1 (a) (2); recorded concurrently “in connection with” a transfer subject to the imposition of documentary transfer tax”, or

“Exempt from fee per GC 27388.1 (a) (2); recorded concurrently “in connection with” a transfer of real property that is a residential dwelling to an owner-occupier”, or

“Exempt from fee per GC 27388.1 (a) (1); fee cap of $225 reached” or

“Exempt from the fee per GC 27388.1 (a) (1) Not related to real property”

If you need assistance in determining whether or not your document tile is exempt please review the SB2 Worksheet. Please do not submit the work sheet as it is for your use only.

For information on how to declare the 2017 SB2 exemption, please click here.

Click here for a tax grid illustrating how the fee/tax could be applied throughout Tuolumne County. This tax grid does not include the usual recording fee. The notes the bottom of the tax grid as it defines how the Recorders Office will interpret parcel and transaction.

Failure to declare an exemption will result in the imposition of the $75 Building Homes and Jobs Act tax. Taxes collected are deposited to the State and may not be available for refund.

We will provide further updates when possible but we would like to offer this information for those that need to prepare closing disclosures for transactions following December 31, 2017.